by Dixie Lyle
So I put the least urgent stuff on temporary hold and decided to concentrate on the more immediate, life-threatening stuff. Because that gigantic, rainbow-colored snake slithering through Cooper’s dreams and the vision of Bonkle’s imaginary friends had to be what Teresa Firstcharger had described.
The Unktehila. A supernatural carnivore that would probably love to gobble up not only my boyfriend, but a certain kitty and pooch whom I cared very much about.
Both of them were waiting patiently by my car when I walked up. Well, Whiskey was waiting patiently. Tango was on the hood, pacing back and forth and putting dusty little paw prints all over the paint job.
I unlocked the doors and opened the rear one. “Both of you, get in.”
They just stared at me.
“Because there’s a threat to all of us and we need to go someplace safe to discuss it and we might be overheard. So just get in the car, please.”
[A threat? We’re running away from a threat? That hardly seems proper.]
“It’s not proper, it’s prudent. Get in.”
Tango sat down. And yawned.
“I will. As soon as you get in the damn car!”
Whiskey glanced at Tango. [She’s upset.]
[Hard not to. More angry than scared, though.]
[Not a good sign. She must have had a fight with Ben.]
I groaned. “Look, I’ll tell you both all about it if you’ll just get in the car!”
[No.]
I glared at both of them, then slammed the door shut. “Fine. You want to know what’s going on? That snake we’re hunting is probably hunting us. Or at least Ben and Teresa Firstcharger, because it’s something called an Unktehila that just happens to be the ancient, sworn enemy of the Thunderbirds. Oh, and it can look like anything and persuade anyone to trust it.”
My partners considered this, Whiskey’s eyebrows going up in worry while Tango took a more relaxed approach and licked one paw.
[You’re overreacting,] Whiskey finally said.
“How can you say that? Tango, you were the one all worked up about a giant snake lurking in the shadows—”
[First of all, Foxtrot, you’re overstating the situation. Speaking as a shape-shifter myself, there’s no being that can look like anything at all. There are always limitations. Second, there’s no such thing as universal persuasion, either. Once you’re on guard for it, attempts at mental coercion are easily recognized and can be deflected.]
I gave up. “Got it,” I said. “Okay, we’re not running away. But we need a plan. We need to stop bouncing from one event to another. We need to strategize.”
[Then by all means, let us do so. It’s what you excel at, is it not?]
I smiled. “When I’m not freaking out because my boyfriend and I just had a fight, yeah. I’m actually much better at handling other people’s problems.”
Tango gave her head a very feline shake.
[Of course you don’t. It requires caring about the problems of a person other than yourself.]
[Any that don’t feed you?]
[It’s astonishing how you can transform selfish ignorance into blind optimism in the space of a single sentence.]
“Guys. Strategy. Us. Now?”
[Well, obviously we need to find this Unktehila creature and deal with it. If it’s a shape-shifter, it’s probably hiding in plain sight, disguised as something else.”
[Something harmless.]
[Of all the adjectives that come to mind, harmless isn’t high on the list.]
I put a hand up. “Stop. Let’s recognize the potential for extreme paranoia here. Mind and appearance tweaking? That’s the stuff of nightmares. So right off, let’s just assume that the three of us are, well, the three of us. Because, honestly—I don’t think there’s anyone, alive or dead, who could imitate the relationship you two have.”
[Unless they were smart. Then they’d be the first one to point that out.]
I sighed. “Really? We’re going to go that way?”
[Not as such. It’s one thing to fool the eye, quite another to fool the nose—especially my nose. While I might not be able to detect an Unktehila on its own—that scent isn’t in my olfactory library—an imposter posing as something they’re not is another matter.]
I thought about that. “So if the Unktehila tried to pass itself off as someone you already know, you’d spot it. What about someone you’d never encountered before?”
[That could be a problem. I wouldn’t know the difference between an Unktehila’s natural scent and the natural scent of a human I was meeting for the first time.]
[You’d be surprised. Every organism is a complex symphony of olfactory nuance, affected by everything from their diet to their environment. Should we assume our killer is one of the guests because they had sardines for lunch?]
“So it could be one of the guests and we wouldn’t know. It could even be Kaci.”
[I strongly doubt that.]
“Let’s face it, we don’t know who or what the Unktehila is hiding as. But we have to make finding out priority number one.”
Tango jumped down from the hood.
“By eliminating suspects. If it’s not someone we already know, it might be a guest. It can’t be Keene. That leaves Teresa Firstcharger, Theodora Bonkle, Efram Fimsby, and Rustam Gorshkov or his dog.”
[Firstcharger is also unlikely. She’s the one who alerted us in the first place.]
I shook my head. “If she’s an Unktehila posing as a Thunderbird, she’s doing an awfully good job. I think we have to assume she’s the real thing, which still leaves us with four possibles.”
[Fimsby would be my guess. He’s been manipulating us from the start.]
“Both good points, but what about Theodora Bonkle? She’s so unlikely it would be a stroke of genius. Hiding in plain sight by sticking out as much as possible.”
[For once, we agree. Foxtrot?]
I took a deep breath. I felt
a lot better than I had a few minutes ago; funny how deciding to act instead of react will do that for you. “Okay. Tango, I’d like you to shadow Fimsby and see if you can learn anything. I’ll talk to Theodora, and Whiskey will pay Kaci a visit. We’ll rendezvous in the gardens afterward.” I paused. “Uh, there’s just one problem. I kind of took the day off.”
Both of them gave me an extremely skeptical look.
“No, really. I did.”
Then they glanced at each other. I felt like a teenager trying to explain something to my parents and they just weren’t buying it.
[She was upset.]
I chose to ignore that. “It doesn’t matter. I can talk to Theodora in the graveyard—she’s probably still hanging out with Cooper. We’ll rendezvous by Davy’s Grave, instead.”
“I’ll see both of you later. Let’s get to work.”
As I strode away, I heard Whiskey say, [That’s why I tend to avoid them.]
* * *
But I didn’t run into Theodora at the graveyard. I ran into Keene instead.
He sat on a headstone, strumming a guitar, dressed in old black jeans, white sneakers, and a faded TRAVELING WILBURYS T-shirt. I heard him before I saw him, the music starting and stopping as he tried to work out the melody.
“Hello, Trot,” he said with a grin as I walked up. “I see you’re wearing That Look today.”
“What look?” I said pleasantly.
“That one with the bright smile and the carefree voice and the eyes full of murder. You’re dead brilliant at it, but you can’t fool me.”
I blinked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you do. You always know exactly what people are talking about, and what’s really going on, and how to fix things. Only some things can’t be fixed, and some people will always talk crap, and usually you’re impervious and indefatigable and altogether unbeatable, except when you’re not. And on those days, you wear That Look.” He frowned down at the guitar and tried a different chord. “No, no, that’s not it.”
Which is when I noticed he wasn’t alone. There was a ghost perched on his back, peeking over his right shoulder. It looked like a monkey, with large, bat-like ears and huge, golden-brown eyes. I knew what it was immediately, though I was surprised to see it on Keene. Ghosts rarely interacted physically with the living.
I glanced down at the grave. It was a tiny plot, much smaller than the headstone itself, which was made of white marble and looked expensive. Chiseled into it was the name JEEPERS and the inscription BUSH BABY BY NAME, MY BABY BY HEART.
“I’ve seen you sitting here before,” I said. “What’s so special about this spot?”
“This? This is my muse. Good old Jeepers, never lets me down. When I’m really stuck on a tune, I play it for him. Or her, I’m not really sure. Did you know he’s the only bush baby interred here? Not that surprising, I suppose, considering they’re native to Africa.”
I tried not to stare at his phantom hitchhiker. Jeepers did, in fact, seem to be listening to something, his head cocked in that universal way. “And how exactly did an African monkey become your muse?”
“Galagos aren’t monkeys, though they are primates. And I didn’t so much pick him as he picked me—that’s the way it often is, with a muse. Just felt drawn to this spot one night, a few years back. Sat right here and did what I’m doing now, and the whole song just fixed itself. Which makes perfect sense, if you think about it.”
“How’s that?”
He tried a different key and seemed more satisfied with it. “That’s better. Galagos are very vocal. They make a lot of different sounds, and their ears are extremely sensitive: They can even hear the sound an owl makes when it glides through the air. Plus, they’re both social and nocturnal—much like me. So, it makes sense that they could appreciate a decent melody, don’t you think?”
“I would have thought something with feathers would be more appropriate as your muse.”
“A bird? Nah. Lead singers are too hard to work with—massive egos, the lot of ’em. I need something with digits, something that can appreciate what I’m trying to do. Galagos even have rounded fingernails, just like us.”
“Wait. Aren’t you a lead singer?”
“Like I said.” He looked up at me and smiled again. He really did have a very nice smile. “But at least I know it. And so do you, which is how you got me talking about myself instead of you, and right about now is when you’re going to ask if there’s anything you can do for me, and by the time you’ve done that and skipped merrily away I’ll have forgotten all about the fact that we were talking about your problems, which are non-existent in nature and you don’t have any, anyway. Right?”
“Absolutely. Ben and I had a fight.”
And then my eyes got about three sizes bigger because I couldn’t believe what I just said. Or whom I’d said it to.
Keene stopped playing. He put the guitar down, propping it against the back of the headstone. Jeepers leapt off his shoulder—a really amazing leap that covered a good twenty feet, it was a shame Keene couldn’t see it—landed on top of a mausoleum, and scampered out of sight. Keene scooted over, patted the top of the headstone, and said, “Sit.”
I did. He studied me, a very odd expression on his face, and said, “Talk.”
Worry. That was it. He was worried, which on Keene was like seeing a tuxedo on a duck. Just didn’t look right.
So I talked. I couldn’t tell him everything, of course, but the details didn’t matter. What mattered was that my boyfriend and I had a fight, and I was feeling frustrated and alone and not at all appreciated, and he was a sympathetic ear.
Yes, Keene was a rock star. And a flirt, and a party animal, and an overgrown man-child with responsibility issues. But he had a big heart, and I’d never seen him be mean to anyone.
Sometimes, all you want is for someone to listen.
“Ah,” he said. “Teresa Firstcharger. Yeah, better watch out for that one. Real man-eater.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You know that firsthand, huh?”
“Me? Nah. I like my women a little less predatory—that one starts to salivate at the sight of blood. Saw her hit on Brad Pitt once at a charity bash. Thought Angelina was gonna go all Lara Croft on her, but credit where credit’s due; she just smiled and ignored her. Lots of practice doing that, I’m guessing. Plus, being one of the world’s biggest movie stars tends to bolster the old confidence.”
I sighed. “Yeah, well, I don’t exactly have a lot of practice in either of those. I barely have any practice in the boyfriend area, period.”
He mock-punched me in the arm. “And whose fault is that? You’re the one who decided to be all responsible and jobby every single day. I swear, you wouldn’t know a weekend if it threw up on you. Which, granted, is not exactly a ringing endorsement of the process and far too accurate in my own case and I really should stop talking, shouldn’t I?”
I laughed. “It’s okay. You’re right, I’ve always focused so much on work that I don’t leave enough time for myself. But I love what I do, even when it’s crazy and intense and overwhelming.”
“You love it because it’s crazy and intense and overwhelming. Same with what I do.”
I gave him a skeptical look. “Right. What I do is like being a rock star.”
“Bloody right it is. See, you and me are two of the lucky ones, Trot. We get to do what we love for a living—that’s something most people don’t have. They work to pay the bills, and they use whatever time and money left over on what they love. Family or hobbies or sports or friends or whatever gives them joy. But us, our joy and work are all mixed up together. That’s a huge thing, a great thing, a thing I always try to keep in mind, just how lucky people like us are. But like the late, great Elvis Presley once said, ‘It doesn’t matter how rich or famous you are. There’s trouble at every level of life.’ And
the kind of trouble that us lucky, lucky folks have is the inability to separate what we do from who we are. We don’t get to put a bad day at work behind us when we go home at five o’clock on Friday night. When something bad happens at our work, it happens to our whole lives.”
I thought about that. Didn’t I have my own life? Wasn’t I more than ZZ’s assistant? More than the Guardian of the Great Crossroads?
Of course I was. But Keene was right, I didn’t give that part of my life enough attention. I needed to make more space for just being me, instead of spending twenty-four seven worrying about other’s problems. I could do that, right?
Right?
“So,” I said. “How do you cope? Or is the answer the obvious one?”
He grinned. “What, you mean the drugs and the drink and the philandering? Nah, that’s just part of the job description. What I do is come here.”
I sighed. “Perfect. Your escape is my prison. You think maybe I could go on tour with you for my next vacation?”
He shook his head. “Never. You’d lose that last little shred of respect for me that I know, deep down, you still harbor. It’s small, it’s fragile, and it needs to be tended. So don’t ever knock on the door of a hotel room you know I’m in—promise me.”
“Sorry, no can do. Gotta give you some incentive to be better. In fact, the next time you’re on the road I’m going to use my amazing organizational superpowers to track you down and do exactly that. Shall we say nine minutes after one o’clock in the AM, Mr. Keene?”
He stared at me with horror in his eyes. “You wouldn’t.”
“I would. From now on, wherever you are—Bangkok or Amsterdam or New York—you better be fully dressed, sober, and alone at one oh nine. Or the shred gets it.”
He shook his head in sorrow. “You are a hard, hard woman, Foxtrot Lancaster. Ah, well. I’ll probably get more sleep this way.”
“No, you’ll start every party at one ten.”
“One eleven, actually. You’re good, but two minutes leeway is only polite.”
“Aren’t you going to ask why I picked one oh nine?”
“No. I like our relationship to have a little mystery.”